


Raven Quote Drabbles

by Ormspryde



Category: Tales of Vesperia
Genre: M/M, Overthinking, Supernatural - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 01:51:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7598815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ormspryde/pseuds/Ormspryde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of drabbles, using various quotes I dug up as 'seeds'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dead Men Don't Cry

**Author's Note:**

> 'Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.' - Paul Tournier

Raven looked down at Dahngrest from his favorite nighttime perch, the faint breeze ruffling his hair slightly.  It was early evening, so the city was still busy, not yet settled down for the night.  He liked to sit up here and reflect sometimes, at least when he was in town.  It seemed to grant him some measure of peace, and watching others at their various tasks made him feel like he wasn't quite so alone.

  
Not tonight, though.  Not after what Alexei had ordered him to do.

_Dead men don't cry_ , he thought, but his throat was thick and his head ached.  How could he do this?  How could he betray...?

_I'll have to shut down again_.  He shuddered.  How appropriate, then, that his commanding officer had handed him the precise tool he needed to accomplish this mission, even if it had been hell getting to this point.  That thought sparked memories that were best left untouched in this guise, and he spent several long moments stuffing them back where he kept them.

Thinking about what this would do to the group - especially Karol, Rita, and Yuri - was no better.  Somehow, he'd started caring again, and he regretted it, because that was just going to make things harder now.  Why did it have to be these people in particular?  And why was it that everyone he cared for died?

_Dead men don't cry_ , he reminded himself, though it was hopeless.  This would be the end of him, though; he was determined to have that much, at least.  Even if he killed...

Something in his chest ached, something that he'd thought long dead.  Something that he thought he'd rooted out.  And he knew he'd hate himself for what he intended to do, but maybe it wouldn't matter if he finally found the grave he'd escaped at Temza, all those years ago.


	2. If the Dead Should Rise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'War would end if the dead could return.' - Stanley Baldwin

_We're all going to the same place._

It began as an eldritch, haunted whispering in his dreams.  Yet it wasn't quite that, either; Schwann found he couldn't put a concrete name to it, or he didn't want to.

It was like he was afraid of giving those things a name.

_He should not have meddled in the affairs of the dead._

The first time he heard it when awake, he thought he'd finally gone mad.  Perversely, it was almost a _relief_ after years of trying to hold himself together mentally, though at the same time, it unnerved him.  Maybe the horror of being kept alive by a blastia had finally gotten to him; but at the same time, he didn't think so.  Why, after all, would his madness have the voices of the dead.

_He's only going to keep adding to his crimes_.

He only realized that was so when Casey began to speak to him.  Her voice was still so clear and sharp in his mind that even hearing it was enough to take him back to that dusty, blood-soaked battleground so many years ago.

He carried that battleground inside him still.

_He'll bring more people to die in that blasted wasteland_.

The whispers got louder.  And he saw her - he saw _her.  He saw them_.  The dead were following him everywhere; he didn't recognize all of them, but it was hard to mistake them for anything else.  He hadn't been sleeping right, or it wouldn't have taken him so long, but eventually he noticed that they clustered around Alexei when he had to be around the man.  It was...unnerving at best to see what the commandant did not, the screaming wounded dead clustered around him - baying for his blood.

_Give him what he deserves_.

Was that what they wanted of him?  The thought grew into suspicion; and, as dreams and waking life began to blend, hardened into certainty.

How long this waking and dreaming and waking continued, he did not know.  But one night, he woke up outside Alexei's door, half-naked and clutching his dagger in a bloodless hand.  The dead screamed in his ears, demanding blood for blood - and he gave in.

_He's going to pay for his deeds_.


	3. All Those Little Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.' - Booker T. Washington

It was the little things.  Raven, all sharp eyes and quick mind under his sometimes-dull facade, noticed it, though he'd never have let on.

  
Yuri _trusted_ him.

He could hardly believe it after what he'd done, though of course he gave no sign.  It wasn't like the other man to make a big show of such a thing, and he didn't want to break what might be a fragile spell.  No, it was things like 'hey, can you watch my back?' or 'let's go catch something for the pot, ossan'; it was keeping watch and scouting for a place to set up camp.  And, startlingly, it was the thoughtful, searching looks he kept catching on the swordsman's face.

He didn't know when it was that he'd started trusting the man in return.  Maybe it was when Yuri had shouted him out of the black pit in his head he'd finally leapt into; or maybe he'd been fighting it even before that, he didn't know quite yet.  Even less did he know the exact point that trust had deepened into...something.  He wasn't sure what that something might be yet.

Yuri touched him, too, in a way that he touched nobody else; a gentle grip on his arm, a hand on his shoulder, sometimes, or on his chest, placed just so to avoid the blastia.  And why didn't _that_ bother him?  Yuri was an exception to so many rules that it shouldn't have been a surprise, except that it was.

Judith saw it before he let _himself_ see.  'He cares for you,' she told him simply when they were setting up camp one day.  The krityan's only elaboration, when he stared at her, was a cryptic smile.  Maybe it should've pissed him off, but somehow, it loosened something in his chest, a tightness he hadn't even known was there.

And he could see it now, in all those little things that Yuri did and didn't call attention to.

**Author's Note:**

> I seem to have a thing for old men, ravens, old men named for ravens, dead men, warriors, and folks with things they'd like to get off their chests.


End file.
